Castles Made of Sand Read Online Free

don’t like Charm Dudley, but it must have been a hell of a thing. I kept thinking, back then, Fiorinda forever , but I’m fucking glad that firestorm of a superstar brat didn’t happen to my band.’
    They laughed, and talked of other things, only for the pleasure of coming back to her. Nice little country we’ve got hold of here, a little battered but still afloat. What are we going to do with it? Leave governing to the government, our job is the hearts and minds… The next big problem, as Ax saw it, was the Ancient British tendency, except they didn’t call themselves that now. Called themselves the Celtics, in alignment with a Pan-European movement of the same name. Anti-science, ultra-Green, covertly racist and dangerously attractive. The Celtics didn’t want economic recovery for the masses, mediated by futuristic-utopian sustainable tech: as all that sort of thing was against the will of Gaia—
    It was a hijack. You didn’t hear Ireland, Scotland and Wales calling themselves the ‘Celtic nations’ any more. They didn’t wish to be associated. But needless to say, the sinister romantics had their fans at Westminster, and Ax’s own so-called subjects were deeply divided. So how to combat the Neo-Feudalist creep? Without starting a civil war in the Counterculture?
    Ax had come up with the idea of an education scheme. Futuristic-Utopian arts and crafts. Masterclasses; training in music tech from superstars. Pop-cultural history in hedgeschool kindergartens. Bring in the rest of the Arts. Outreach to the general public, get some irresistible albums out. Rock and Roll meant something different now, for everyone trapped in Gulag Europe by the data quarantine. Not crowd control (disguised as the hedonistic soundtrack of the revolution), but a connection with the lost world. Psychological landscape, belief in the return of modern civilisation—
    ‘D’you think an education scheme is going to work ?’
    ‘Truthfully, no,’ said Ax. ‘I always think my ideas for social engineering are ridiculously stupid and childish. But then I look at real government initiatives, supposedly designed by the grown-ups, you know? And fuck, I’m no worse.’
    Sage laughed. ‘Well, okay, I’m in. You got us this far.’
    ‘I wish you’d sing more,’ sighed Ax. ‘You have such a great voice. There are songs I’d love to hear you do, and so would the punters. But no, you prefer to hide behind those fucking circus stunts that scare me to death, and I’m sure you’re going to kill yourself—’
    ‘I am not going to kill myself. Look, if I sing, I have to take care of the voice, they don’t take care of themselves, an’ the body (yeah, laugh, my stock-in-trade) is already a time-consuming hobby. Why don’t you sing more?’
    ‘Because I can’t.’
    ‘Now that is nonsense — ’
    The pauses became longer. Sentences fell into pools of engrossing silence. They left the spot where they’d taken root, went out on deck and stood leaning against the rail, backs to the water, elbows touching, breathing slow, sinking deeper and deeper into the feeling—
    ‘Sage?’
    ‘Ax.’
    ‘Let’s go home.’
    Fiorinda had had the flu for Christmas, gone back to work too soon and succumbed to an attack of bronchitis. The after-effects were enough to keep her at home on a chilly, damp February night. Well, she wouldn’t have known where to put herself at Allie’s gig, in the circumstances.
    So this is what happens. You are poorly, so your boyfriend abandons you to spend the day with his best mate, and they’re going to your best girlfriend’s party out of their heads on hideous mind-destroying drugs —
    She’d meant to go to bed early. At midnight she was sitting up reading, drinking red wine and trying not to worry. When friends take oxytocin, the intimacy drug, things have been known to go horribly wrong. Especially when the friends are the same sex, and heterosexual (or more or less heterosexual, darling Ax…) Fiorinda hated